via Zapu not entitled to seized properties — Mutasa – NewsDay December 31, 2013 by Silas Nkala
ZANU PF secretary for administration and Presidential Affairs minister Didymus Mutasa yesterday declared that the Zapu properties confiscated after independence now belonged to Zanu PF under the 1987 Unity Accord.
Responding to President Robert Mugabe’s plea for those who ditched the Unity Accord to rejoin Zanu PF while officiating at the unveiling of the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo’s statue in Bulawayo on December 22, Zapu had said certain conditions needed to be fulfilled before its members could consider going back to Zanu PF.
In a recent statement, Zapu, which is led by former Zanu PF politburo heavyweight Dumiso Dabengwa, listed the refusal to return its properties confiscated after independence as one of the reasons its members pulled out of the Unity Accord.
The seized properties include buildings in Bulawayo, farms and motels.
However, Mutasa said the matter of Zapu assets left in Zambia at independence was discussed during the Unity Accord talks and Dabengwa was tasked with repatriating them to Zimbabwe and it was not known what he (Dabengwa) did.
“As for those properties in the country, when they talk about them being returned to Zapu, they must think twice because we have our national chairman (Simon Khaya Moyo) and others who are in Zanu PF under the Unity Accord,” Mutasa said. “To whom and to where do they want those properties returned? Our national chairman was Zapu and through the Unity Accord, those properties are for the united Zanu PF.”
Zapu dismissed Mugabe’s pleas as insincere, but Mutasa said the appeal was not directed at Dabengwa and his party, but to ex-combatants because as far as they were concerned, Zanu PF and Zapu were still in the Unity Accord and the President would not call back people who were already in the party since the pact was signed in 1987.
“The President is very sincere in his remarks. He would not talk about Zapu members returning back to the party because as you know we have people like our national chairman and others who came from Zapu and we still have them, so he would not call for Zapu members when Zapu and Zanu PF are still together upholding the Unity Accord,” Mutasa said.
Dabengwa led a group of some top officials who pulled out of Zanu PF citing unfulfilled promises made in the 1987 Unity Accord.
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